Scrambled Eggs
by Darmed
Summary: Freak. That's what he was. He'd accepted it. So why was this man trying to convince him otherwise?
1. Neighbourhood 1: Tunnels

_**Chapter one**_

_**Tunnels**_

White.

Though he supposed it was more of a cloudy grey.

The walls were covered in it, as was the floor, the furniture, even his clothing, his _skin_.

He'd given up speaking long ago, for first, he'd spoken to himself, recited sonnets, Shakespeare's Henry V, but then they'd stopped him. They'd stopped him from speaking and now he could only _think._

He lifted a pale arm he couldn't identify as his own and felt the tug of the _thorns_. The thorns that'd stopped him from moving since they'd locked him up; closed the door to his tower, his chamber, his _prison_, only opening it to refresh the _poison_.

The poison slowed him down, made him sluggish (and who would want him when secreting slime everywhere he went,) locked him up, made everything _white _and _fuzzy _and forced him to crawl into corners of his mind of which the doors had grown rusty and as heavy as his eyelids. Corners, dark and littered with vermin he'd tried to exterminate.

At first, he'd tried to fight _them _off, but the men were wizards and he was but a _rat._

They'd enchanted him; _cursed _him and now he was stuck with a pumpkin and could only count the seconds to midnight.

The beads of sand slipped through his unmoving fingers and, as hard as he tried, he could not grasp them and was forced to leave another shred of the sanity they claimed he did not have on the steps of the palace stairs, as if he'd abandoned his entire foot and lodged his ankle into the sharp pebbles in an attempt to _get away_.

Time was irrevocable, his brother used to say before the wolf ate him whole, so he could not spare a minute unplanned, yet Sherlock had learnt time was a treacherous mistress, ticking away while he lay asleep in bewitched dreams that did not give him rest.

He groggily moved his arm in an attempt to swat the cockroaches away, only for it to halt mid-air, stopped by countless _prickers _piercing his pale skin.

Blood trickled down his limbs and joined the bugs crawling in and out of corners he did not remember seeing though he'd spent a significant amount of his time staring at the walls, at the forest that surrounded him and the dark spaces in between the trees, full of eyes that looked at him day and night and would tell the wizards when he misbehaved.

Then again, he supposed _staring _was not _seeing _and _seeing _was not_ observing. _

Centipedes littered his feet and worms fell from a ceiling too high for him to _observe_, fell into his hair and down onto the floor, where they returned to the cracks.

Countless spiders ran up his arms and he screamed and flailed, swatted, but his clenched fist never managed to hit any of the countless scratchy, hairy legs.

He felt the sharp pain in his arm which in the back of his mind was screaming, _yelling, _freedom, but only seemed to produce more red, sticky, _stinking _liquid and more and_ more _until he felt he would drown in the _disgusting_ and _wrong _and he _couldn't move. _

Tied down, the blood, the _poison_ and he couldn't _do anything_.

Couldn't grow out his hair in order to throw it down and escape his tower for that only worked in fairy tales and _they'd cut off his hair when he tried. _Couldn't jump from the window, for that only brought _pain _and the claws of the _dragon _awaiting him at the bottom.

A door opened. Somewhere. He could hear, but he couldn't _see, _nor stare, _observe. _He couldn't eat. He couldn't sleep and for a moment, all he saw was light; light that he knew not to be the freeing warmth of matchsticks.

Sherlock had never doubted his happily ever after more.

* * *

_So basically, Sherlock is a mental patient. I'm sure you deduced /that/ part. It's always good to start the day with some angsty angst, don't you think? The pairing is Sherlock/John, which I've dubbed 'HoTson', both for my own convenience and amusement._

_This story is dedicated entirely to **CorvidCoccinelle, **who dragged me through times I didn't even think capable of ever being able to survive. And then dedicating her writing to me, also! WHAT IS THIS. I love you, woman. Thank you so much for everything. You're my rock in the slipstream._

_With love,_

_Mary-Jane_


	2. Neighbourhood 2: Laika

**_Chapter Two_**

**_Laika_**

He'd tried shaking his head.

He'd tried hitting it out, but they'd also stopped him from _moving _and now the thorns were back, and when the thorns returned, so did the _voices_.

_Weird. Scary. Freak._

He frantically tried moving his arms, but they were heavy and his bindings were _magic_.

A vampire bit him.

He knew it when he felt the _sting_.

A vampire bit him and now everybody was frightened.

Everybody was frightened and Sherlock felt like he needed _feet_, but was stuck with fins that restricted him, _bound him_, kept him from escaping the _water_; the water strangled him, _asphyxiating, nauseating_ him to his empty, _rotting_ core.

He tried holding his breath, but his _useless_ body forced him to desperately open his blue lips and _inhale_.

He tried to ignore the water as it filled his ears, his lungs, his nostrils and tried to move, but he _couldn't_.

It felt like he was _filled_, instead of the usual _empty_.

Only he didn't want to be filled. Not now. So he closed his eyes and tried to be void.

Inside his head, it was like a car park.

He tried to create a traffic jam; make them crash, enter a roadblock or a stop sign, but nothing but the blaring of _horns_ greeted him. Horns that kept on, _insisting, shouting_ and a violent spinning of colours before everything was _white_.

* * *

He gasped.

He tried to stop, yet gasped again, his chest heaving.

He looked up and found his neck; his _chest _moving, up, until he could _see. _But when he _saw, _he saw nothing but sand. Sand and heat burning at his entire body, flames licking and twisting, but when he looked; really _looked, _he saw a man.

No wizard. No dragon or demon.

A regular man in a fluffy sweater that reminded him of one of the blurs he'd once seen on the magic box that made his head spin, but most of all, he didn't look _afraid._

The man just smiled.

He just smiled and was _not_ _frightened _and for the first time in _onlyGodknowshowlong, _the voices were quiet.

The man opened his mouth and Sherlock _swore _he could hear him speak.

He could hear a voice, surely. Calm and friendly and _real _and not at all like _the others_. If only he could hear what the man was _saying. _

Sherlock turned his head towards the sound in order to _identify, _but found that the words the man spoke were not ones he _knew_.

He opened his mouth and tried to speak despite the sand slowly filling his throat and rasped out words of desperation he never meant to show, pleas to come save him, words that sounded completely logical to _him_, but seemed to only confuse the other man.

His brows momentarily furrowed and he stood up.

Sherlock yelled at him not to leave, for the voices would return and to not be afraid because _why would he do people harm he couldn't even move _but then he thought of the fear and the blood and the _fangs_ and he _knew _why the man would leave.

He turned around and smiled, but Sherlock knew it was _wrong_ now and he didn't even whimper when the man closed the door, opening the _eyes _and Sherlock had to close him mouth so as to not choke in the tiny stones _but he didn't miss the water_ and laid his head back on the hot, sandy ground, sweating in the scorching hot sun.

The bright, scalding rays which seemed to enlighten everything but the _shadows. _

And he closed his eyes, for he could block out his foreign surroundings, but not as easy as he could the steady chanting of _freak_scary_strange_monster_FREAK _and he knew he'd take any unintelligible _lie _if it would just be quiet.

And he knew he could give any inch of his sanity for the man to return.

That is, if he had any.

* * *

_Oh yes. This took way longer than it should. But it's hard to write insanity, you know. I just hope other people understand my crazy logic, really. Because sometimes, I think this shit's too cryptic. OH WELL. While bacon is not love, reviews are and every single one of them serves to make portions of my life. This is begging. I'm doing it._

_Love,_

_Mary-Jane_

_P.S. Please tell me I didn't forget to reply to any review I SUCK I SUCKKKKKKKK_


	3. Une Année Sans Lumière

_**Chapter Three**_

_**Une Année Sans Lumière**_

The man came back.

He'd come back for only minutes. Mere minutes before his kind face scrunched up and he left again.

And every time, Sherlock felt worse.

Every time the man left, a light switch flipped.

Saliva-slicked fingers dimmed the tiny flame of the candle the man seemed to carry.

A candle which, even if it brought light, did not bring clarity and Sherlock felt nothing but disappointment and _frustration_.

Frustration which boiled up from his toes and rose up to his throat and _burned_, until it erupted into red-hot words. Words the man seemed to _not understand_ and made him frown and leave and Sherlock felt _stupid _because _why did he say those things_, but then the man would return and would remind Sherlock that he _could not hear_.

Yet the man did not _smile_.

He did at first. Before the _bottle_.

He did not know of its contents, but it had so kindly requested he drink it, he simply hadn't the will to _refuse_. And then the man stopped smiling and Sherlock felt so _small_.

But then he only felt smaller and smaller and suddenly everything just seemed too _big _and he was _free_.

He was freed by the _Hatter_.

Only this Hatter wore no hat and wore no Cheshire Cat smile and _why couldn't he move_?

Sherlock tried to scramble up and it was _dark _again and he was too little and everything else was large and then he _fell_.

He fell to what seemed like the middle of the earth, and he briefly wondered if everything would be upside-down on the other side, before he _smacked _down on cold tiles.

He tried to move his legs because he was _too late_, but then he saw _the door_.

A small door, which was just _good_,_ fine_, if only he had a _key_.

Sherlock screamed, but realised it wouldn't help.

No one would hear, for they were all gone and he was _too _bloody _late_.

He scrambled up on hands and knees before they shook and he realized the Queen had made him lose his head.

He sat back and tried to stop the _ticking_.

He tried to smash it with a mallet, used butter and jam and _perhaps the Hatter was hungry_?

He called and tried to hear himself over the constant _tick-tock, tick-tock_ but when the door opened, it revealed only a rabbit.

A rabbit in a waistcoat and for a moment he thought it could maybe _understand_ before it reached into its pocket and took his pocket watch and _smashed_.

* * *

_Well, now this is just too bloody short, isn't it? NO U_

_That was the smartest I could come up with. It's nearly three in the morning, good sir. I swear, I might even have the courage to get this onto DA before my alarm goes off!_

_Love,_

_Mary-Jane_


	4. Neighbourhood 3: Power Out

_**Chapter Four**_

_**Power Out**_

He was running.

Where to, he honestly did not know.

He could have found out, naturally, had he been able to _see._

All was dark. Certainly, this meant he could see _something_. Black _was _something. He'd always resented the common man who thought of black as nothing while it was to be _easily _identified as _darkness_. And yet, right at this moment, Sherlock felt that he was running from the darkness, _the black_, straight into actual _nothing_.

The nothing where there was no _feeling_.

No thought, no memories, good or bad.

No pain.

And the more he tried to convince himself that _nothing_ was _bad_, that _black_ was _good_, for it was at least _something_, the more his mind, _traitor _as it was, seemed to want to convince him that living with one leg was unacceptable. That nobody could love one who was incapacitated, and to just take the plunge into the red hot flames getting nearer and nearer.

They thought he was mad. All of them.

But they were _nothing_. And nothing was not black. Anything but. It was no memories or feeling and Sherlock knew he wanted darkness, so why was he still _running_?

He tried to stop.

He honest to God tried to stop, but his feet slipped and stuck into wet soil and then he fell.

He was so sick of the constant _falling _and tripping and all of the blurry and fuzzy-white and he _hated _his body.

He tried to spit at it. To scream, but the useless traitor wouldn't move and he was left on the ground, in the slippery mud.

He wanted to yell. To tell the light, bright, _blinding, _to _piss off_, but his mouth seemed to be filled with eels and he choked on the words. The space filled his throat, but even a space was _something_, so even if the letters slipped past his teeth, he was still _t__here_, and the space in his body kept him breathing.

He wheezed, tried to save himself from drowning in the mouths full of dirt, _before _the flash of white.

He tried to crawl away from it, but it consumed everything, ate away at the dark, before it was gone.

For a while, Sherlock laid still, eyes wide.

He was no longer writhing in soil like the swine they had transformed him into, but was lying on solid ground.

Tiles, it seemed. Bright white like millions of pearls.

No trees, no rocks or dirt. Only pearls, darkness and a small flame, getting closer even though he could never spot it moving.

* * *

He breathed.

He tried to speak, but only gargled and for the moment, he considered this an improvement.

He tried to move, but only twitched. And then he smiled.

He smiled and the earth split.

Or his head, he couldn't tell, but for a moment, he was blinded by another white flash, hot as the sand in his memory, and _sound_. _So much_ rumbling sound as rocks tumbled and rolled into the crack his smiling had created.

* * *

It was over.

Sherlock could tell.

He could tell because he didn't move.

If _he _didn't move, his surroundings wouldn't move.

It was quite simple, really. And still they thought he was mad. Insane. Completely haywire, while it was all so blindingly obvious. As blinding as the tiles, the light, the ever-nearing fire illuminating what he could now describe as walls as white as the rest of his prison.

The fire was now nearly all-consuming and Sherlock realized that, if he were to just surrender, to simply _give __up_, it would all be so much easier.

Nothing needed to be complicated and nothing _was_, in fact, complicated and he seemed to be the only man having made this discovery.

Obvious. Simple. Dull, yet so _good_.

Satisfying. _Gratifying_.

Even as the flames licked his skin and the surface boiled, baked, _cooked_, and for a second, he was eternal.

Invincible and forever.

Inevitably better than them, for one is born so one can die and the long time one has to wait to fulfil their purpose is more than they can bear, but Sherlock didn't have to wait.

Sherlock could tread their path in circles and keep walking while they were forced to walk forward and see the road end and _who was the mad one now_?

Surely, it was the hatter, they would say. Always the hatter, while in actuality, it was the Queen.

They could call him mad, but he was anything _but_ and all it took was liquid skin for him to realize.

* * *

The flames of yellow.

Of red, green, orange and blue.

And in them, a door opened.

The colours parted and brightened and a man entered.

_The _man. The strange man who somehow seemed to be slightly above the average earthworm. The man who could smile without the rocks parting and the skies falling, and the man spoke.

For a few seconds – hours, months, Sherlock couldn't tell – it was hazy.

Garbled words Sherlock tried to desperately understand, to literally _grasp _as they flowed around him in colourful lines, but the fire would thicken and darken and the man with the soft woolly skin would disappear before reappearing in yellow and green.

The man kept speaking.

Sometimes rubbish, obviously, sometimes clear and bright and Sherlock tried to learn this _language_.

He was always fast in picking up these things, mummy had said.

Sherlock reached out and comma's, full-stops stuck on his fingers while letters slipped through and his arm was so _tired_.

He let go.

Words clattered to the ground and shattered like pieces of a mirror. A very cold mirror. And he closed his eyes as they pierced his skin.

He thought of nothing. No memories as his heart froze over. Of no pain. No life, no death, no mind, no everything.

And he realized, as he opened his mouth and the eels slipped out in the form of a calculated sentence, that even _nothing_ was _something_ and that he had been as dull and ignorant as the rest. He was simply mortal. He was _human_.

And finally, he could understand.

"What time is it?"

The man smiled. "It's just past four."


End file.
